to God alone;) "but fear him, who, after he hath killed the body, can cast both body and soul into hell." "And they stoned Stephen, calling aloud, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit*." "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," were the last words of the Redeemer.

St. Paul acquaints the Corinthians †, that he knew a man in Christ, caught up into the third heavens; and the parenthesis, "whether in or out of the body I cannot tell," plainly implies the possibility of the soul's existence and consciousness, in a state of separation from the body.

We must remember, that it is not the question of a future state, which is here under discussion; and indeed it is going too far to charge, unequivocally, the advocates of materialism with infidelity on that point. We find, in fact, Socinian materialists to be believers in a life to come. In what, then, consists the evil of the material system, as connected with Christian principles? First, we observe, that materialism, though not wholly destroying, greatly diminishes, the probabilities of a future state; and excites scepticism as to the proofs of it derived from natural and revealed religion. For, though it may be contended that God, who once called man, with his thinking organs, his medullary ratiocination, into existence, can as easily re

Acts, vii. 58.

2 Cor. xii. 2.

peat his original work; it seems much more reconcilable to our reason and habits of thinking, that the immortality of the soul should subsist in its never ceasing to be, when once created: in its surviving the body as a pure spirit, to be afterwards clothed by God in a frame of finer materials, conformable to the higher functions and enjoyments to which it is destined; than that the thread of the continuity of existence should be broken, and that a temporary annihilation should take place for thousands of years: at the end of which, a fresh act of entire creation should call the man into a second existence. Indeed, a thorough-paced materialist is an unbeliever in immortality. Mr. Lawrence affirms pretty plainly, as the consequence and corollary of his materialism, that death, which destroys the bodily structure, destroys the whole of man. "Those, on the other hand," observes Mr. Abernethy, a more solid and experienced medical judge, "those who admit that intelligence may exist distinct from organization, are disposed to admit that the intelligence with which they are endowed may have a separate existence *"

* In discussing the question of materialism, in its connexion with a future being, some difficulties appear to present themselves in regard to the inferior animals. If every thing which is not inert matter be spirit, and if spirit be indestructible, and indicate thereby a probability of its continued consciousness

Death annihilates nothing: if it disperses the parts of the body, not a particle of them is lost.

after death, will not this principle apply to the lower animals ? I reply, that man differs from the inferior animals in having a rational principle and moral sense, superadded to the spark of life: that the spark of life alone, by no means indicates consciousness after dissolution; since it may be, and probably is, dissipated in the thin air; and that the materialists, by assigning to man only a more elaborated organization, as the cause of his superior faculties, reduce him in this respect, as far as natural religion is concerned, to a level with the perishable brutes. The immaterialists, then, are freed from this difficulty; and it is they alone who can rightly avail themselves of all the other arguments of natural and revealed religion, in favour of immortal existence. For, to urge that man differs from the inferior creation, in intellectual powers, in a sense of right and wrong, and in anticipations of hereafter; is only driving a materialist deeper into the obstinacy of his principles and the mire of his confusion. He replies, that all this is the result of his superior configuration; and that dust returns to dust, but the spirit to God who gave it, is no news, no comfort, no revelation-nothing but a stale truism to him, who believes that spirit to be only the breath of life, which man partakes in common with the inferior animals. Professor Stewart has observed, that "the proper use of the doctrine of the immateriality of the soul, is not to prove the soul to be physically and necessarily immortal; but to refute the objections which have been urged against the possibility of its existing in a separate state from the body." But I would add, it is further to strengthen, by that refutation, the other arguments derived from natural and revealed religion, which elevate the possibility of its existing in a separate state, into a probability and a moral certainty-Rennell. Quarterly Review. Dugald Stewart. Beattie.

Death, therefore, annihilates not the soul; and as it has no parts, it exists entire, in separation from its partner body.

The immateriality and separate existence of the soul are intimately connected with the doctrine of an intermediate state. Such a staté most Socinians deny, as materialists, who think the separate existence of the soul impossible. Now, the notion of Socinian materialists, that a suspension of consciousness, a total insensibility, a sleep of a thousand years, laps the faculties from death to judgment, contains something gloomy and revolting to the feelings, eager to open upon the enjoyments of eternity, and to be rejoined to the beloved friends who had gone before them to the tomb. But let us try how far this instinctive recoil and disappointment is founded in reason and Scripture. We have already proved that mind and matter are distinct, and possess a separate existence; that the body is not necessary to intellectual functions; and that mental operations are not the acts of an organized body. There is, therefore, in the first instance, no absolute necessity for assuming a sleep and suspension of the mental functions.

Having proceeded thus far, we may likewise lay considerable stress on the probability derived from analogy. God exists as a pure spirit; so void of all bodily form, that to assign

him one is idolatry, that crime fenced, in the Jewish theocracy, by so many dreadful menaces *. He maketh his angels also spirits †: having an unembodied existence. Thus, spirits exist separately in the other world; and wherefore may not those of men?

If we refer to Scripture, we find it written in the book of Acts, that "by transgression Judas fell, that he might go to his own place." Thus his soul had not only a place, but its own place. Now, we elsewhere read, that we are encompassed with a cloud of witnesses, among whom are the spirits of just men made perfect§. We infer from this passage, that these spirits, after dissolution, sleep not until the resurrection; for, to be witnesses, they must retain their consciousness. We infer, from both passages, that the spirits of the just and of the wicked have different places assigned to them; and that they go at the hour of death, to exist immediately in these places.

St. Paul signifies to the Philippians, his desire" to depart, and to be with Christ, which

* John, iv. 24.

+ Psalm civ. 4; Heb. i. 7.

Acts, i. 25. See Bishop Bull's Sermons, vol. i. s. 3; Sermons de Chaix, Choix de St. Paul; Dr. Hale on the Prophecies.

§ Heb. xii. 1 and 23.

Philip. i. 23